Talk about an oxymoronic description of a moron: "Marxist intellectual"???? Combined with terrorists such as Che, Leila Khalid and the ZANU-PF of Zimbabwe! This is exactly the threat from within that the UK government has ignored for the past 10 years.
Bruce Che-Leila member Takawira interviews Ethiopian Marxist intellectual Mohamed Hassan. This is the first part of a series of interviews conducted with Comrade Hassan. The second part will deal with developments in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. We hope that these interviews broaden and deepen the debate and study into the political developments in the Islamic and Arab world as a result of imperialist oppression and aggression against it. The movement of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zwahiri, the two leaders of the movement which is commonly known as 'al-Qaeda', are a product of imperialist oppression and terror against the Arab nation and in many countries which have a majority Muslim population. Furthermore, and importantly for revolutionaries in the 'West', this conflict is creating greater civil crisis within the imperialist countries. These times are demanding that anti-imperialists everywhere study these developments in order to struggle so to put an end to imperialist oppression and in order to create peace and friendship between the peoples in the West and in the neo-colonies. This interview is rather unique in the English language in that it is one of the few articles, from a Marxist and anti-imperialist perspective, that addresses these issues in some detail. Cde Hassan asked that two articles by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels be mentioned in this introduction, on the Chinese revolt in 1857, and the First Indian War of Independence in 1857 which can be found at the following links: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/09/16.htm http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/06/05.htm These articles show how the founders of modern socialism dealt with the early stages of the anti-colonial movements of their time. Despite the fact that the colonial peoples in these rebellions committed atrocities which revolutionaries would not advocate, Marx and Engels nevertheless recognised that these uprisings on the whole raised the anti-colonial struggle to a whole new advanced stage of struggle and should be supported. Cde Hassan welcomes replies, comments, questions and criticisms arising from this interview to his email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] There will be another interview conducted with Cde Hassan arising from the reactions and comments to this interview and the subjects contained within it. Takawira _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Takawira : Comrade Hassan, would you like to make a general comment on the attacks in London last week? MH: I think that one has to go back to two years ago to the statement of the Anglican and Catholic Church in Great Britain on the eve of the Iraqi invasion when they sent a letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair telling him very clearly that; 1, there is no justice in this war, 2, this war has no moral of ethical value, 3, it is not a war for defence where you have been attacked from outside, it is a war of aggression. It even mentioned in the same letter that this war will create a very big wall of division among the British population and it that this war against Iraq may bring a civil war in Britain. It is a far-sighted analysis. I think what happened in London is what they predicted over two years ago. Knowing that British society has a very big Muslim population and other people from Third World origins who have been feeling attacked and identify themselves with the Iraqi population, it is normal that such kind of things will happen in England. It didn't surprise me. What surprised me is that it didn't happen immediately following the invasion. It is an attack that has killed innocent people. For those who have lost their families and loved ones, I give my condolences. I convey my same condolences for more than one hundred thousand who have died in Iraq. They are also innocent civilians, their whole country is being destroyed the whole infrastructure is destroyed. Five million people have been put into a very severe condition. There is even now the export of human organs from Iraq. Many Iraqis are now living by selling their blood to blood banks in order to survive. Around one hundred thousand Iraqis are in prison. The whole Iraqi nation has become a concentration camp. I can imagine that some young people can react and they are desperate to do something about it. I think in this regard the declaration of the Church was very clear. Taka: Have you heard of any reactions from the liberation movements in Afghanistan or Iraq on these attacks in London? MH: I have not heard anything. But it could very well be that this is a British phenomenon. Britain is an aggressor in Iraq. The ruling class in Britain have decided on an aggressive and unjust war by invading a sovereign country which is a member of the United Nations, without any mandate. All the arguments of the British state in waging war has been proved to be false and lies, so probably they have ignited a civil war in their own society. It could be a pure British reaction. Taka: In the current crisis of imperialism, particularly that of the US and the British Imperialists, imperialism is continuing to pursue a strategy of terror and aggression for world domination. In this context it may well be that these manifestations of civil strife in the Western countries will grow. If so, what are the ramifications for the societies such as Belgium, Holland, but particularly Britain and the USA? MH: Well, one has to put this in the general developments in the world since the last seventy or eighty years. The conditions of the world have changed after the Bolshevik Revolution, particularly later on after the defeat of Nazism and when Eastern European socialism was established. A lot of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles have been maintained in the Third World, most of the countries became independent and sovereign. On the basis of that in most of the countries as far as education is concerned their consciousness, knowing their rights, knowing the world situation, knowing their place in the world has also increased. Despite the collapse of the USSR and East European socialism resulting in a change of the balance of power in the world, the aggressiveness of US Imperialism to dominate the world has increased. But US Imperialism has been proved to be a paper tiger in Iraq. Even Rumsfeld and his group are saying that the US cannot wage two wars simultaneously because of the situation they find themselves in Iraq due to the resistance of the Iraqi people. The Iraqi resistance has proved that it is impossible for US Imperialism to wage and maintain war while they are facing serious problems in Iraq and maintaining war in Afghanistan as well as maintaining war in other places. This has exposed the weakness of US Imperialism on the ground. British Imperialism is connected particularly to the Middle East because of its oil interests and their defence of certain Arab regimes, feudal Arab regimes which are subsidising the British economy. Britain has since the first Gulf War [1991] continued with the US to illegally bomb Iraq without any mandate, imposing an inhuman embargo, trying to overthrow the previous regime internally by financing vigilante groups, terrorists and so on and so forth. As far as terrorism is concerned, the 'war against terror' and the 'anti-terror' laws is itself terror. To give you an example, the killing of the Nigerian judge by US vigilante in Nigeria, the elimination of certain figures and politicians in Lebanon - what's happening now. The anti-terror laws which gave been applied in the US combines a lot of things, but it includes eliminating public figures in any country in the world. The US has started the terror. Their terror is limitless and it is global. Of course their propaganda machine is very big. They try to fool the US and British white working class and dividing them from the rest of the working class by stating that there is terrorism against them from outside. You see, in the Arab world before 11th September most well to do Arab middle class families used to send their children to England and the US. Now of course, after 11th September and the vigilante action and terror within the US has frightened the Muslims, and non Muslims for that matter from the Third World, from going to the US because of the repercussions of terror which is applied in the US against Muslims and Arabs specifically. Taka: We have seen certain state oppression and civil clashes manifesting themselves in different forms developing in recent years in Belgium, Holland, Spain, France and in Britain and the US. One could argue that this is going to increase, and is going to polarise the working class along religious and national lines. How do you think that progressives, the anti-war movement and people in general should react to this? MH: First of all one has to analyse Political Islam from a historical perspective. Political Islam is a political movement which has an ideology of its own. It is basically led by the petit bourgeoisie, sometimes even by the national bourgeoisie. Political Islam in the beginning had difficulties in their own countries with nationalists and anti-imperialist forces. They came into collision with Nasserism in Egypt, also with the Baathists in Iraq and particularly Syria. Because of these contradictions, on the one side the Zionists and the other side the feudal rulers like Saudi Arabia utilised the Muslim Brotherhood and other forces that are based on Political Islam against Arab Nationalist movements and against communists and left anti-imperialist movements. But in the process the movement made a evolution. Once they were imprisoned in Egypt if you take Egyptian Islamic Jihad, they split inside the prison. The jihadist concept developed in prison with Qutb and Zwahiri who believed that they must continue with armed struggle to overthrow the regime. Of course the Egyptian jihadists have tried armed struggle inside Egypt but they later realised that the Egyptian conditions were not suitable. There are no jungles or forests, no mountainous areas in Egypt. The Egyptian army and intelligence services and their supporters were too strong for them. So they designed another strategy and tactics when they travelled to Afghanistan. There they are allies against the Soviets, but at the same time they are regrouping and organising their own cells and movements. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, gradually US Imperialist arrogance was proved under Clinton when he bombarded Baghdad after the first Gulf War. They figured that they have overthrown one enemy, now the bigger Satan is the US, the enemy is US Imperialism and they decided that they must fight it. One of the principle demands of their struggle is that the US must leave Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is a royal family, it is a family business where there is no constitution, there is no central bank, while they are controlling 25% of the world's oil, they are subsidising the US economy, and so on. They say that they must overthrow these people, there must be a change. The whole Saudi community, all the forces except the most background and reactionary elements, today they see Osama bin Laden as their hero in Saudi Arabia. He maybe seen by the West as a horrible man but in Saudi Arabia for the Saudis they see him as a national hero. All forces are organising under the image of him, whether they are secular, left, Baathist, nationalist. They are under the umbrella of this image, who want to overthrow and create a democratic country with a constitution, with accountability. Apart from that they also say that the oil wells are Arab wells and they have to be distributed to the poorer Arab countries. Not only for the Arab countries but also to poor Muslim countries because they have the right to share the wealth from the wells of Saudi Arabia and the wells of other feudal states in the Gulf. In Saudi Arabia now there is a very big movement, military and non-military. There is a civil movement which was hidden and organised secretly, and there is also military combat. The day before yesterday they have discovered according to Saudi reports, a lot of weapons captured at the border with Yemen. This shows that a big part of the Saudi armed forces are connected to and supporting the movement. The al-Qaeda branch in Saudi Arabia is a nationalist movement. They want to overthrow the regime and establish democratic country, democratic within their own culture and values, and also to control their own national resources which are totally controlled by US Imperialism. If they succeed in Saudi Arabia the result will be that the other small feudal states will collapse. US Imperialism of course will be weakened if these people succeed in Saudi Arabia. Taka: Do you think that this analysis has to be popularised in the West? MH: It has to be popularised. Taka: To make sense of what's going on? MH: To make sense of what's going on. First of all there is very little to no reports in the Western media. In the whole Gulf States there are seven million workers. Sixty percent of them are from the Third World. The remaining forty percent are from imperialist countries who earn on average seventy times what they were earning in their own country. They are living in ghettoes. These ghettoes are the opposite of the ghettoes in the imperialist countries where there is poverty, but the ghettoes of these white so-called expatriates working in these countries are the most luxurious ghettoes with swimming pools, everything is inside and they are walled in. The excuse for this is that these countries are Islamic. Inside these ghettoes there is no Islamic law, women are walking around like any beaches in Greece or Spain, whiskey is sold openly there and they are living exactly, in fact they are living in better conditions than there own countries. 500,000 Saudis have studied in the best universities of the West and have returned home, and none of them have any function in the running of their country! They are forced to do other types of businesses. They cannot get employment in the government, they cannot reform their own country, and they cannot demand accountability. There is not even a minister for finance who does book-keeping for the economy for what is coming in and out of the country! All these people are demanding reform. This has forced the Saudi regime to establish what they call 'Shura', which means a sort out parliament. Saudi women who cannot vote are also demanding their rights. People talk about the Taliban who are very brutal and anti-women, but they never speak about the condition of women in Saudi Arabia, they never speak about the condition of women in Kuwait, in Bahrain and so on. Taka: More than that, not only do they not speak about this reform movement, they depict it as a movement that does not want to give women rights, that it is a movement in which women play no role. It is presented often as a militant Wahabbi movement. That's often as sophisticated as it gets in the newspapers. Would you agree that this is a big problem that there is a lack of analysis, let alone profound analysis to what's going on there? MH: The jihadist movement in Saudi or in Egypt, despite the fact that they are taking their inspiration and ideology from Islamic thinking; it is basically a nationalist movement, a nationalist movement with an Islamic colour. Wahabbism is in fact a creation of British Imperialism itself; secondly the Wahabbis are in power. Wahabbism is the ideological wing of the regime in Saudi Arabia. They are exporting Wahabbism to destabilise progressive governments and movements in the Muslim countries. Wahabbism is the perfect ideological weapon against progressive, democratic and revolutionary movements. The nationalist movements in the Gulf States have nothing to do with Wahabbism, no; it is rather a democratic revolutionary movement, a nationalist movement which has a religious cover due to the situation in their countries. Of course Saudi Arabia is an Islamic country where Wahabbism has ruled for a very long time. Saudi is the place where the holiest shrine of Islam is, it is the most important place for the Islamic world. So their movement's mobilisation uses religion and nationalism combined to fight against imperialism and neo-colonialism. It is a nationalist movement and you can see that they are attacking Western interests. When they attack expatriates they want them to leave, to make them panic and frighten them and away and to disturb the economy of the regime in so doing. They are not attacking them because they are whites or non-Muslims. Most of the expatriates are military people who train the Saudi state, armed forces and security companies. So the targets are military targets despite the fact that they are wearing civilian clothes, but they are military people who train the Saudi regime to maintain itself. It has nothing to do with Christianity, no, it's a nationalist movement. Taka: Recently al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper ran a seven part interview with one of Osama bin Laden's bodyguards called 'Abu Jandal'. Maybe I misunderstood it, but I think Abu Jandal found it difficult to accept that post-1996 Osama bin Laden suggested that he make a critique of Wahabbism. Abu Jandal was formerly a pro-Saudi regime jihadist in Afghanistan; he found it difficult to accept that bin Laden said that you must re-study the role of Wahabbism in Saudi Arabia. What is your view on this? MH: Wahabbism is the ideological wing of the Saudi regime. Wahabbism is the most reactionary and backward Islamic sect. It started in the 18th century of a person called Abdul ibn Wahab. He himself was killed by Mohammed Ali, he was hanged in Istanbul. Mohammed Ali at that time was the one who was ruling Egypt. Wahabbism is also an ideology which wants to split the Islamic community deeper and deeper. So the British and later the USA supported the rise of Wahabbism, and then vast amounts of oil were discovered there. Then Wahabbism became in the Cold War the best means to fight nationalist movements. For example, the Republican movement of Yemen which overthrew the feudal regime of Imam Yahyah in northern Yemen. Nasser was supporting this movement by sending military officers to help the new republic. The Wahabbis in Saudi Arabia with the means of the large amounts of money they have, used propaganda and sabotage in Yemen utilising the backwardness there. It is the Wahabbi ideology and the oil money which brought the collapse of the Republic of North Yemen and also in the south of Yemen which was a very progressive and socialist country. It was destroyed by the Wahabbis. The Saudi family made an embargo against south Yemen trying to destroy its economy. They have played the same role in Somalia, Sudan and other countries. By 1996 Osama was saying Wahabbism is a reactionary movement. At that time he was living in Sudan in Khartoum. At that moment he was having in depth discussions with Hassan al-Turabi. Turabi had probably convinced him that Wahabbism is the most reactionary sect. Al-Zwahiri himself is not a Wahabbist. Zwahiri is a nationalist using Islam. He is the most progressive in a sense that he combines three things; nationalism in a modern sense, Mao Tse Tung military technique of using Peoples War, and the third thing, he rejects the reactionary ideology of Wahabbism. He says that there is a power which is pulling the strings in Wahabbism. Zwahiri says, the more we fight against them, the more their master will come and protect them and then the population will know who is really ruling them. So I can understand that Osama can change his opinion. Taka: One can argue that post-1996, bin Laden's movement put itself on its head. Pre-1996, in the period of fighting the Soviets and the ruling party at that time, the Peoples Democratic Party in Afghanistan (PDPA), they were being financed by petro-dollars through the intelligence services and organisations in Pakistan and Saudi with the full support and backing of the USA and Britain . MH: Yes. Taka: But post-1996 they turned this on its head . MH: Yes. Taka: From being essentially a pro-fedual, pro-imperialist movement, they turned this round into a movement directed against US Imperialism and their puppet regimes in the Arab nation and in the Islamic world generally . MH: Yes. Taka: From the aforementioned interview with Osama's bodyguard, interestingly Abu Jandal states that there were many splits in the jihadi movements in Afghanistan on this issue. He states that Zwahiri split with most of his comrades in Egyptian Islamic Jihad on the issue of fighting US Imperialism and their puppet regimes in the region. It can be argued that this is the most important starting place to analyse this movement known as al-Qaeda, or what was started in 1996 as the 'International Front Against Crusaders and Jews'. MH: For Zwahiri I think the split occurred long time before when he was in prison. Once he was released from prison he had a very clear idea of what he wants and what he wants to do. That's why he called his movement 'jihadist'. When he says jihadist he means two things, in Islam there are two jihads, the greater jihad and the smaller jihad. The smaller jihad is to defend yourself when attacked, the bigger jihad is the struggle inside yourself. He understood very clearly the mechanism and theory of imperialism. I would not be surprised that he studied Lenin for that matter, because his analysis of imperialism was very very clear. As a result of that, of his split, he was concentrating to infiltrate the Egyptian army. He utilised that infiltration and he killed one of the most important puppets of the US in the region, Sadat, the ruler of Egypt at the tme, was killed by the jihadists. After that they went to prison and then after to Afghanistan. According to Zwahiri, they chose Afghanistan as a hiding place where they can train and can create more of a base and bring more young people to their ideas. At the time of Reagan in the US, at the time of his idea of the 'Evil Empire' in regards to the USSR, The Saudis and Wahabbists were in alliance with the US by pumping more oil in the world market to destroy the Soviet economy. The Soviets lost ten billion dollars every year because the price of oil reached ten dollars a barrel. This Saudi action at the behest of the US also attacked the Iranian economy and their revolution; also they have attacked countries such as Nigeria and Venezuela by pumping this amount of oil in the international market. At that time they subsidised the imperialist economies when the imperialists were facing severe crisis. Inside the imperialist countries in the eighties, the idea was to support the pro-Saudi ulemas [religious councils] here, to support the Imams. It was possible in the eighties in Belgium to open a mosque easier and faster than it was to open a youth club. The Saudis have another tool, it's called the 'Rabayat Islamiya', the International Islamic Organisation. This organisation is connected to the International Organisation of the Christian Democrats. They meet every year and they are both members of an organisation called the 'Anti-Communist League'. Rabayat Islamiya has cells and offices everywhere. The mosque in Brussels was built by Saudi money, it is very clear. They are also connected to the most right-wing Catholic organisations. The idea was to recruit Islamic youth born in the West for the war in Afghanistan, then they were encouraging them to go and fight. They were not terrorists then, they were good muhajideens. They were promoted as such, invited to the White House. Now after 1996 Osama bin Laden stated that US troops should leave Saudi Arabia, even the Ottomans never brought their troops to the holy lands, second, he criticised the embargo against Iraq criticised the Saudis for their lack of support for the Palestinian Intifada and he raised the issue of Palestine. The people who have supported Osama see injustice everywhere. They see the money from Saudi oil is not used for their national interests. The consciousness of the Saudi population had increased. So at that time the Saudis took away Osama's passport and deported him to Sudan. That was when al-Qaeda, meaning 'the base' was started. Then they became terrorists. Osama's movement tried to kill Mubarak of Egypt in Addis Ababa, and they were seen as the enemy as they were targeting the real enemy of the Arab and Muslim world. Now they are terrorists, yes. Terrorists from the perspective of imperialists and their puppets. Taka: You have talked about a lot of interesting things which may broaden the study of this phenomenon. There is a severe lack of analysis on Zwahiri's role in al-Qaeda in the West. Most of the commentaries are focused on Osama bin Laden, very little is said on Zwahiri's role. Maybe it is easier to muddy the waters in the Saudi context due to the little amount of information from there, and there is a strong element of racism towards a movement which is still trying to overthrow feudalism, whereas this has been completed in the West for at least a century. Although Zwahiri if anyone at knows about him is seen as the number two leader in al-Qaeda. However, as you have said, and reading from his important work 'Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet', he has played an equally important role to bin Laden in revolutionising this movement into one directed against imperialism. Of course Egypt is the biggest recipient of US military aid in the world and is, along with Saudi Arabia, the biggest bulwark against the Arab revolution. What are your views on this lack of focus on his role in the al-Qaeda leadership? MH: I think there are two people who had a positive and negative influence on Osama. Osama before he met Zwahiri he met the Palestinian man Abdullah Azzam. Azzam is not a jihadist. You can say he is the indirect father of Hamas. As a Palestinian he had a very big influence on Osama. The way he reasoned was that the Palestinian issue was the most important issue in Islam and in the Arab world. He argued that any division amongst the Muslims will weaken the Palestinian issue. Therefore to turn things upside down against the Wahabbist regime would weaken the Palestinian issue. That's the way Azzam reasoned. Azzam had a very big influence on Osama. When Zwahiri came he presented the issue like this; it is true the Palestinian issue is the most important, but the Palestinian issue is only a very small segment in comparison to the big issue. Zwahiri said that overthrowing the regime in Saudi Arabia will bring closer the liberation of Palestine. Taka: This is very interesting because again and again you find Osama bin Laden and Zwahiri are putting on the Arab political agenda issues have not been put on the agenda which such force since the initial rise of the Nasserite, Baathist and Arab Nationalist Movement in the fifties and sixties. You can see that they are sweeping away the narrow nationalism that had dealt a deadly blow to the Arab revolution before. It has been left, funnily enough, to bin Laden and Zwahiri to raise these fundamental issues to the Arab Revolution firmly and forcefully on the agenda once again. MH: The Pan-Arabists, whether the Baathists or Nasserites had an influence in the Saudi political situation in the fifties and the sixties. In 1953 there was the biggest Saudi demonstration of the Saudi working class. As a result of that several clandestine political parties came about. There were Nasserites, Baathists, Communists as well as even Maoists. The Nasserites even influenced sections of the royal family, creating a split in the Saudi royal family. The Nasserite trend was the strongest, then the Baathists and then the communists in the trade unions. They were all in an alliance. The Arab nationalists, anti-imperialists and communists didn't learn how to deal and unify against the big enemy in a front, in which I mean how to solve the contradiction amongst friends, and those with the enemy. Most of the time the smallest thing split them and brought them into collisions with each other. When this movement came about in the fifties in Saudi, the ruling class kicked out all the Saudi workers and replaced them with foreign workers. They wanted to make sure that no Saudi workers would develop a political movement. They did not want to create the modern conditions which would then bring about a serious problem for them. Later on the education and political consciousness of the Saudi middle classes improved, and a national bourgeoisie developed that has given birth to Osama bin Laden and his movement. Zwahiri also himself comes from an educated bourgeois background. His uncle was the first Arab League Secretary General, another one of his Uncles was the director of the world prestigious al-Azhar Islamic Institution in Egypt. So his family is a very educated and high bourgeois family. Zwahiri as a nationalist utilises Islam, and the most radical in the sense that he combats US Imperialism. He developed a strategy that was to influence Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden later accepted the political line of Zwahiri. Zwahiri is in fact the ideological father behind al-Qaeda. Osama is a symbol for Saudi Arabia and Zwahiri is a symbol for Egypt. Their idea is to have very prominent people from every part of the Arab nation, and promote them as into an umbrella organisation. In many Arab countries where there is no constitution, no democracy, the only way you can convey your message to the people is by taking the regimes ideology and saying ; you say you are Islamic but you have imperialist forces occupying here, you say you are this, but you are doing something else. You say you are Islamic, but you have no Shura, you have no constitution. Iran has a constitution as an Islamic Republic. In Iran women study, in Iran women can work in public places, in offices, in Iran even women join the police and the army. Why not in Saudi Arabia? So they are raising all these questions, and these demands have a big mass base. That is why I think the imperialist countries don't speak about Saudi Arabia. It will frighten their economies into panic. Taka: We have to expect that silence or propaganda from the imperialists, but as leftists it is worrying to see the leftists dire understanding towards this movement. Of course it is made difficult if working people in London are attacked, and it is absolutely right that we come to the defence of these working people for example on the bus from the some of the poorest working class areas of north east London. The left must defend these people; nevertheless there is an urgent need to understand the political nature so that we can have peace between the peoples. After the attacks on the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and White House on September the 11th, after Madrid and now after London there has been a barrage of rhetoric from many leftists that is using the same terminology as Tony Blair, of course with a left sounding discourse, saying that the kamikaze attackers are 'barbarians', they are trying to destroy our society. What are your thoughts on this? MH: I think the best answer is the result of the election of the Spanish people. Normally when such kinds of terrorist attacks take place the reaction is that the people and the government become united. But the Spanish people proved that they didn't unite with the government, they voted for another government on the condition that Spanish troops were withdrawn and brought home from Iraq. So this is a very good lesson that the anger of the Spanish people and their wise ness and sophistication. In fact they saw the war as illegal and unilateral aggression against Iraq by the US and Britain. In Great Britain, despite of the agony of the London attack, the people and the left movement there have to understand one thing and educate themselves that this war was brought from Baghdad to London because of Tony Blair. A man who is a liar, who lied to the British people. It has been proved that he lied about everything so why should believe him now? He is not accountable to his own people; he is no different from the dictators of the Third World. He is an elected dictator himself! He is using the British youth as cannon fodder in Iraq; many of these young soldiers are suffering from psychological problems. Most of them are from working class families, it's not Tony Blair's children who are going to fight in the war or those of the upper classes. If some young Muslims from a working class background face racism, who see that their identity, their personality, their Islam being attacked day and night. They see a Muslim country like Iraq illegally destroyed. They have seen how Afghanistan was bombarded and how they destroyed that country on a very fake pretext, and if they themselves decided to do what they did, I can understand that. The Irish also, when they wanted to fight for their independence, they did a lot of bombing in London and in Britain. I am not endorsing this, but I can understand that, and as I have mentioned the British Anglican and Catholic Church were much wiser than the left movement. They put the point clearly, they said this was is an unjust war and it will divide our multi-national and multicultural society, it will create divisions, a Bantustan situation and bring a serious war into Britain. And they were right; it is a correct and far sighted analysis from the church leaders. The trade unionists and left movement has to go deep into the water and find out what the problems the youth in Britain are facing. Why are these youth who have been born there and brought up there . First of all it is very clear to me that they are telling us that British born Muslim youths are being recruited by al-Qaeda! This means that your education has failed, your system failed. How can someone from outside from another education system recruit British Muslim youth into al-Qaeda in front of the noses of the British state?! There must a serious problem in the community. The British system led them to be recruited into al-Qaeda if this is the case. For me it is a normal reaction considering the situation, it will happen more. The last important thing I would like to say is that time is over when you can go ten thousand kilometres away and you can bomb and kill and eliminate people and still remain safe in the centre. In one of the speeches by Ho Chi Minh he stated that between 1886 and 1911 over 8 million Congolese were killed by the colonialists. There was no reaction and no one was punished for that, but now I think it is not like before, you cannot go and bomb outside. The retaliation of those who have been bombed will come back to the centre. The situation has changed. 11th September proves this, so does Madrid and now London and even other ones will prove this. The British people have a greater responsibility to who to vote for and what kind of world they need. They cannot live peacefully while their leaders are waging war everywhere and killing innocent people while they can live and travel peacefully. It's not possible. I think the left has to understand that and explain to their population. We are not in the time of the Berlin Conference of 1884 of colonising the world, we are not in the 1920s, we are in 2005. The last fifty years has changed dramatically the consciousness of the Third World peoples, and I think one of the results is that if you touch me, well .terrorism is always the weapon of the weak. End of Part One _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Che-Leila represents the unity of young men and women against imperialist oppression and exploitation. The name comes from Che Guevara and Leila Khaled. It is a British based organisation and has no other sections outside of Britain. To contact Che-Leila, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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